Did Space Empires V kill Space Empires?

[Black_Knyght]

The major problem is that SEV is not really a direct sucessor to SEIV, as the playing style changed too much from one game to another

What killed the SE series was not SE5 in itself, but the absolutely dumb idea to sell it to Strategy First

I absolutely agree with these two statements as to the core cause of Space Empires decline.

Firstly, SE5 was just TOO different from the previous incarnations, and had too many issues combined with an altogether new game style and awkward learning curve. While it does have it's diehard fans, SE5 has proven to have been realistically much less popular overall than SE4 was.

Secondly, and more importantly, selling off the franchise to Strategy First was a catastrophic mistake, and a costly one to Aaron personally. They even went so far as to have barred him contractually from working on another 4x space game for quite some time, and then all but abandoned any further development or support for SE5.

The combination of these two things dug a deep hole and have been slowly been pushing the SE franchise over the edge into it.

The odds are there might be a viable successor to the SE games, but there won't ever be any further development of existing, or hope for any new, SE franchise games.

[DarkHorse]

The odds are there might be a viable successor to the SE games, but there won't ever be any further development of existing, or hope for any new, SE franchise games

Worse, they made a Facebook game out of it

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Black_Knyght

Firstly, SE5 was just TOO different from the previous incarnations, and had too many issues combined with an altogether new game style and awkward learning curve.

Unfortunately many game sequels take this poor direction even with successful games... instead of improving a successful game developers will create a new game. The sequel of a successful game merely needs to fix previous bugs, add more game content, improve AI design/coding, increase map sizes and add more strategy.

While it didn't happen with SE5... the biggest mistake made by game developers is the extreme focus with providing the most recent high-end graphics.

[DeadZone]

Originally Posted by NTJedi

While it didn't happen with SE5... the biggest mistake made by game developers is the extreme focus with providing the most recent high-end graphics.

Disagree about the high-end graphics
It used DX8.1 which was already outdated by 5 years (and mostly replaced in the gaming market also)
Which is why many people had problems with the game in Vista, due to DX8 not being installed with it, meaning it was emulated

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by DeadZone

Disagree about the high-end graphics
It used DX8.1 which was already outdated by 5 years (and mostly replaced in the gaming market also)
Which is why many people had problems with the game in Vista, due to DX8 not being installed with it, meaning it was emulated

You obviously read my statement incorrectly. I said it "didn't" happen with SE5.